The exclusive tendencies which the merchant guild developed made it really an oligarchy, and so there grew up in the towns an ever increasing population that did not share the guild privileges. As the town and its trade developed, the complexity of trade regulations made it a convenience to have guilds with specialized functions, to which the merchant guild might deputize its powers. It was quite natural, too, that men working at the same trade, and having social and neighborhood association, should desire to have a guild which would represent their distinctive interests. Thus the craft guild arose, not in antagonism to the merchant guild, but as a special agent of it. So, in the reign of Henry I., there came about the associations of the weavers, cordwainers, and fullers. By the end of the fourteenth century craft guilds were numerous, and in some places the merchant guild was superseded by them. In their composition the guilds were made up of masters, journeymen, and apprentices, from whom were elected the officers and assistances. Women were members of these craft guilds, although they do not appear to have taken part in the business administration. "The charter of the Drapers speaks of both brethren and sistren, and the list of members, as given on the occasions of 'cessments' shows women-members, both wives of corn-brethren, independent tradeswomen, and widows of deceased brothers." The relation of the women to some of the guilds seems to have been largely a social one. Thus, we read in the rules of the Calendar Guild, a religious fraternity, that the wives of guild members had gone to such extremes in their entertainment of the guild as to cause it to be stipulated that no woman should spend in excess of a certain specified sum for hospitality toward the guilds; for these guilds were formed for various purposes besides trade, and were in the nature of friendly societies. In addition to their commercial side, they were "associations for mutual help and social and religious intercourse amongst the people." The proportion of women in the membership was always large. In her introduction to _English Guilds_, Miss Toulmin Smith says that "scarcely five out of five hundred were not formed equally of men and women.... Even where the affairs were managed by a company of priests, women were admitted as lay members, and they had many of the same duties and claims upon the guilds as the men."